


Lost and Found

by Jessicamariek



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-24
Updated: 2012-05-24
Packaged: 2017-11-05 23:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessicamariek/pseuds/Jessicamariek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He finds, and loses, and finds again - Setzer before he joins up with the rest of the party. For accidentalzombie as part of Final Fantasy Exchange 2012.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

  * For [accidental_zombie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidental_zombie/gifts).



> Prompt: "I would like a fic that centers on Setzer, his gambling days and how he got his scars." Went a little bit sideways off the prompt, but I hope you like it anyway!

The poker room at the Golden Chocobo was Setzer’s second home, after the _Blackjack_. The smoky air, the deep green walls, the profusions of well-shielded candles above the tables – the succession of singers crooning standards in the corner – the barmaid who knew his order by heart, the dealers who called him by name. The security guard addressed him as “my friend,” the pit boss called him “Mistah Setzah,” the cashiers called him “sweetheart.” He talked politics with the janitors and sports with the boys who fixed the slot machines. In a way, the white-haired charmer at the mid-limit hold-em table was as much a fixture, a part of the casino as the giant, gaudy chocobo statue on the roof, or the owner in his crisp white suit, or the flamboyant customer-relations manager who called everyone “darling” and wore the brightest ties he could find. 

“Looks like I’ve chased off another one of your admirers, my dear,” Setzer said one night, watching the retreating back of the latest rookie to lose his bankroll to the pale-haired young man. “My sincerest apologies.”  
“Serves him right,” said the dealer, tossing her dark hair behind her shoulder. Her name was Rania, and she was stunning – tawny skin, jet black hair down to her waist, flashing brown eyes rimmed with kohl. “If he’s too busy staring down my blouse to keep an eye on his cards, he deserves to bottom out.” She laughed lightly, leaning forward to brace her elbows on the table. “Just like the last dozen or so.”  
“But my dear Rania, how can you possibly fault a man for being distracted by so delectable a morsel of femininity?” he said broadly, raising his glass in a toast. “After all, we are but poor mortals. We cannot be expected to resist the urge to feast our eyes on so lovely a vision,” he continued as she threw her head back in laughter. 

“Mistah Setzah, are you tryin’ to sweet-talk one of my dealers again?” Aline, the pit boss with an accent from the southern coastal towns, came sauntering over in a cloud of lace and rose perfume. “You’d best not let me hear anythin’ inappropriate, if you catch my meanin’.” She smiled at him as she said it, but Setzer knew better than to take the corseted, middle-aged woman for a soft touch. Aline Rosenbaum’s methods of handling _real_ troublemakers, the ones who got violent or abusive after one too many drinks and one too many losing hands, were the stuff of legend in the gambling town.  
“I assure you, madame, I will endeavor to make certain that you hear no such remarks,” he said gravely.  
“Guess that just means we’ll have to keep our voices down then, eh?” Rania said with a roguish grin at Setzer.  
“Shall I whisper in your ear, just to be positive?” He waggled his eyebrows at her with an impish smile as she giggled again and Aline smacked him on the back of the hand.

 ____________________

There was one specific singer that the casino kept hiring to entertain its card players, a tall, slender young woman with a heart-shaped face, eyes the color of seaglass and a voice that was lovely enough to make Setzer lose track of a game. When he spoke to her the first time, she introduced herself as Maria Caillad, age nineteen, one of the Golden Chocobo’s contracted performers. She was self-centered, yes, but in the naïve, harmless way of an otherwise sweet young woman who had been told for most of her life that she had an extraordinary gift. She thought he was charming, with his silvery hair and easy banter; he thought she was adorable, with her amazing smile and sparkly personality. She was the pretty lady he’d ask to blow on the dice before a big roll, and he was the handsome fellow she’d come talk to first between sets. And they both thought the other was wasting themselves in this one-track, dead-end town. They weren’t truly lovers, not in the traditional sense – there was no talk of forever after, no declaration of undying affection, no pretense of permanence. They were friends, nothing more, who occasionally took to each other’s beds in search of comfort, entertainment, or simply company.

“So, my favorite little songbird is flying the coop,” he said after one such encounter as they lay talking among the tangled sheets.  
“Mm-hmm.” She nodded, her disheveled blonde hair shifting on the pillow as she rolled onto her side to face him. “The opera house in Jidoor is looking for another soprano – apparently one of their girls is with child – and the Impresario was here tonight and he heard me sing and…” She trailed off with a shrug. “He wants me to leave with them, day after tomorrow. Setzer, I can’t pass this up.”  
“I know,” he said, absently twining one long lock of her hair between his fingers. “And I wouldn’t want you to – I’ve been telling you for how long that you’re so much better than this town?” She giggled briefly.  
“I’ll miss you, you know,” she said softly after a moment. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to, no matter what. We’re not gonna be able to do that anymore, even if you come to see me – the girls have to live at the opera house, and we’re not allowed male visitors most of the time.”  
“I’ll tell you what,” he replied, rising up on one elbow. “Someday when you’re the pride and joy of the opera house and you’ve made all your conquests and played everything you ever wanted to, and I’m the most notorious scoundrel ever to fly the skies, and everyone knows our names, I’ll cap off both our careers by whisking you out from under their noses.” She laughed again as he continued, “And then instead of playing goddesses and ingénues and silly little girls, you’ll play the queen of the skies, free as a bird, and it’ll just be you and me taking on the world. Deal?” She beamed at him.  
“Deal.”

 ____________________

The woman called herself Daryl. She refused to tell him her age (“A few years older than you, pretty boy”), her hometown, or her last name. She was tall and blonde, wearing a long violet jacket with red lining over barely-there black miniskirt and tank top, and she was possibly the best poker player that Setzer had ever met. She drank hard and fought harder, as some unfortunate fools found out when they tried to rob her after a winning night at the casino, and she had Setzer wrapped around her finger from the first time she’d beat him bloody at cards. When he’d taken her to the outskirts of town to show her the _Blackjack_ , in hopes of impressing her, he’d found another, equally impressive airship parked not far away, and she’d said something along the lines of “I was wondering who belonged to the other one. Wasn’t expecting you to be a pilot.” Setzer counted himself blessed that the attraction was mutual, and before long the two of them were seldom apart – either destroying all challengers in the casino or racing each other across the sky. 

One evening, sitting on the deck of the _Falcon_ watching the sunset with a bottle of wine, he turned to look at her. The warm, amber light washed over her features, painting her in gold and lighting flame in her blonde hair as it tossed in the wind, her green eyes narrowed slightly as she gazed off into the distance. She took another sip of wine, the dark liquid staining her lips, before suddenly smiling and turning toward him. “Yes?”  
“Simply enjoying the view,” he said lightly, and she huffed a laugh, tossing her head back as her smile widened.  
“You can be such a sap sometimes, Setzer.”  
“Only on special occasions, Daryl.” Once upon a time, he’d thought of Maria as a songbird, delicate and lovely in her comfortable cage. Daryl, on the other hand, was the falcon she'd named her ship after, fierce and untamable, bound only to the wind – but if you were lucky, she’d let you fly beside her, and show you the world from among the clouds. She had been born to fly, and he could only hope to keep up with her. “When did you first decide you wanted to be a pilot?” he asked on a whim. She pursed her lips in thought for a moment before she answered.  
“I think I was fifteen or so,” she said, “coming home from some sort of dance lesson with my mother – my parents wanted me to be some sweet, submissive little angel to marry off to a rich man’s son, but I’d always been more interested in machinery than in homemaking. I was making plans to run away – be a dancing girl, or a bounty hunter, or something – and then I saw an airship landing on the outskirts of town, a huge thing but it moved so lightly… I wanted one. I met the man who owned it on the streets later, and he agreed to take me on as an apprentice if I could pay my way. I sold a few pieces of jewelry to get the money, packed some clothes in a sack and ran like a deer. Right up until we took off I was afraid my father would come find me and force me to come home.” She paused, taking another drink. “I haven’t been back since, and that was more than a decade ago. I don’t know any more if I even want to go home again.” Daryl stared into the sunset for a moment, silent. “Depressing subject. Come on,” she said as she rose from her chair, “I’ve got a couple modifications to the engine that I wanted your opinion on. If they work the way I think they should, this baby’s gonna _scream_ through the air.”

 ____________________

He tried, for the rest of his life, to block out the memory of the day he found the wreckage. He tried to forget the mad rush through the ruined ship, through broken beams and shattered walls and sharp edges that lashed against his skin, to find the cockpit. He tried to erase the image of the empty room, the shattered windows, and the shreds of violet and red caught on broken glass. He tried to forget seeing the spatters of dry, dead blood on the deck outside the window, and the fresh, flowing blood from his own tattered face dripping on top of them.

He couldn’t find her body, not after that long, so instead of entombing the woman he’d loved, he repaired and cleaned and polished her ship, tuned it to perfect working condition, and then buried it under a mountain – a massive monument to a woman who’d lived life on her terms, and nobody else’s. He swore it’d never fly again, that her memory would stay locked in that mountain cavern, and sealed the entrance completely.

He tried to forget the whole awful ordeal, but the scars reminded him.

____________________

Years later, when he’d broken his own promise to save the lives of those he’d grown fond of and found that the Falcon still felt like home, he sat in the lounge of the ship with a deck of cards and his new friends.

The scars had faded somewhat, and there were new ones to add to the collection; he’d survived the end of the world, and he’d beaten a few of his own demons along the way. He’d lost Daryl in the mountains, he’d lost Maria the day the world cracked apart, but cliché as it was, he thought he’d found himself. And now, the thief, the general, and the child of magic sat in a circle with him, listening; Celes took notes as he spoke, and Locke fiddled with a pair of coins.  
“Alright, so the first thing to remember about poker is what makes a hand. A pair beats high card, and two pair beats one…”


End file.
